Learning PBR
polycounter lvl 5
I recently stumbled across this introduction to PBR a topic which was entirely new to me, and I decided if this is where next gen games are going, best to learn it sooner rather than later. So I began looking into it and decided the best thing is to learn by doing.
I started with some material tests in Marmoset 2, which is as far as I know the best (only?) thing currently able to do it.
My 1st attempt at metal
And something with a mix of dielectric and conductor
I'm working on a flintlock pistol to texture with PBR and for fun I made a few more tiling materials and applied them to the current stage of the high poly. To me it looks amazing and I can't wait to finish this up properly. (yes I made the cocking mechanism into a swan
)
I started with some material tests in Marmoset 2, which is as far as I know the best (only?) thing currently able to do it.
My 1st attempt at metal
And something with a mix of dielectric and conductor
I'm working on a flintlock pistol to texture with PBR and for fun I made a few more tiling materials and applied them to the current stage of the high poly. To me it looks amazing and I can't wait to finish this up properly. (yes I made the cocking mechanism into a swan
)
Replies
The 1st 2 were made by setting the pattern as an alpha in zbrush. The 3rd one was made in max using the design as a template.
i don't really understand this PBR thing .. is just same textures but with some little minimize the ao in the diffuse ... ect .
it's really confusing !!
I'm barely getting my head around it either! There's so much maths and physics involved in the documentation out there.
I know what you're trying to point out, when I get it into zbrush I'll be cutting out the holes in the plate so the screws fit flush.
I'm planning to make this properly, I've been making the high poly whilst making test materials and then just slapping the materials on the high poly with a uvw box map to see how it looks. The final model will be properly unwrapped and textured.
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice
I was considering adding more surface texture in things but zbrush is already chugging and it can probably be done just as well with crazybump.
If anyone has any feedback it would be much appreciated.
-Creat High Poly base in max, use to test materials in marmoset
-Finish high poly in zbrush
-Perfect tiling materials, correct values, tile perfectly, all done with textures -> no adjustments inside Marmoset
-Create Low Poly, test bake from HP in xnormal
-Assign a colour to each part of the high poly depending on material, to bake to low poly as material masks
-HP bakes in Xnormal
-Duplicate UVs to 2nd channel
-Map Tiling materials to low poly in max on channel 1. For each material duplicate the object for each map and assign that map.
-Bake Materials to 2nd Channel, asemble in photoshop using colour masks baked in xnormal
-Test in Marmoset
-Add dirt using Substance Painter
--I AM CURRENTLY HERE!
Albedo, roughness/gloss, metalness, normal, cavity, occlusion
-- STILL TO DO
-Finalise Texturing
-Present Nicely, possibly animated
-Collect Underpants
-??????
-Profit!
Otherwise nice.
Skin is rough, and the friction from constant touch will rub away the oils and dirt that accumulate on metals that show as dark and black discoloration.
And this is the low poly with just the bakes, no substance painter dirt.
I decided to set up the old scene with the same lighting as the above 2 images for comparison, now I'm thinking me messing with sky light could be an issue.
Thanks for any help.
More Images
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Though, I'm not sure if the PBR is a further yet simplified version of it, or perhaps the other way around. They also used something similar in Bioshock Infinite. And.. take all I say with a grain of salt here.. I'm relatively new to it myself :P
But, my tip would simply be, take a peek at the vizualisation/rendering side of things, and how they work with materials.. it does actually give quite a bit of helpful info when working with this
Also, I really appreciate you including a breakdown of your workflow. I'm trying to get familiar with PBR (and texturing in general) myself, but I got a little lost when you described baking tiling maps to different UV channels. Could you explain that a little more?
As for my material baking I will try to explain a bit better.
I had created materials previously which were tilable, and each included an albedo, roughness, normal, occlusion, cavity and metalness.
I UV mapped my low poly just like normal, and then I copied the UVs to the 2nd UV channel in 3ds Max. I could then apply another UVW Unwrap modifier and use UV channel 1 to map the parts of the low poly to the tiling materials I had created.
Metalness, AO, Cavity, Roughness, Normal, albedo
I then used render to texture to bake these maps out to the UVs in the 2nd Channel which were my final UVs for the model.
Hopefully that's made things clearer, I've tried explaining this to people in person with the files in front of me and they still don't understand what I'm on about sometimes
how did you do the bullet and particles in marmo 2 been looking for something like that for a personal project.
So the smoke is just a load of planes and the sparks are just little elongated spheres.
Then the rest is done in marmoset materials. The smoke is all the same texture except at the back it is set to "dither" alpha mode and at the front it's set to "add". Then there's a light on the front smoke to give the glow effect.